Frustration is going back and forth from homeowners to lenders.  Unfortunately, Washington, is not helping much either. The Obama administration set up a $75 billion Making Home Affordable program to pay mortgage lenders to modify home loans, but a Treasury Department spokeswoman couldn’t even say whether lenders and banks have to reveal how many mortgage loans have been changed.  So why bother trying to get an unaffordable loan modified?  John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com, points out that a loan modification, if you can get it, won’t damage your credit the way a foreclosure or a short sale would.  And he notes: This process, although difficult, is free.

You don’t have to use those law firms and companies that are advertising heavily, saying they can pull off a modification for a fee, usually of a few thousand dollars.  To learn more about the Obama’s loan workout program and mortgage relief in general, go to www.makinghomeaffordable.gov.  Homeowners Hope Hotline, 888-995-HOPE.  Article was written by Harriet Johnson Brackey for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Sales of existing single-family homes were down 30% last year from the 2005 level, while new-home sales showed a record-breaking plunge of more than 60% from 2005 to 2008, according to the Harvard report.

Many Wall Street analysts covering the home-builder sector remain skeptical of talk of a sustained recovery. “Overall, the California builders and construction companies we met with echoed what we have been hearing throughout the U.S.: that there was clear momentum in sales in the spring, but concerns still remain around the sustainability of the improvement we have seen,” said Barclays Capital analyst Megan McGrath in a note recapping a recent industry conference.   “The availability of credit, to both builders themselves and to home buyers, continues to be challenging,” McGrath wrote. “While it appears that banks and mortgage lenders are willing to do some construction-only loans to builders, land-related financing appears to be relatively non-existent.”

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, at least 3.2 million homeowners entered foreclosure in 2007 and 2008, and an additional 600,000 entered foreclosure in the first quarter of 2009.   Mortgage servicing companies and lenders continue to report a flux of loan modification applications, so we know the demand for foreclosure prevention measures still exists.  Despite these dismal foreclosure figures, the Harvard report did see some long-term positives for the U.S. residential market. In particular, it cited demographic trends such as expected demand from immigrants and so-called echo boomers, or the children of baby boomers.